#ventyourrent: a round-up

Posted by Dan Wilson Craw1632.20sc on May 16, 2016

On 26th April, we launched a social media campaign called #ventyourrent on Twitter and Tumblr. We asked people to tell us on cardboard, a photo, or just a tweet, what they were paying in rent and what it bought them.

The plan was to get Londoners sharing their worst experiences of renting and generating some solidarity ahead of the Mayoral Election on 5th May. We hoped that seeing the posts would get people thinking about the housing market as a political issue that they could have some influence on. If they did, we had a handy guide for them.

It was the first campaign of its kind that we have attempted and we could not have done it without the energy of a crack team of volunteers*, the guidance of Paolo Gerbaudo of Kings College London, and the inspiration of Pierre-Emmanuel Lemaire, Yasmina Aoun, Cong Bi and Nicola Lotter of Central St Martin's MA Communication Design course.

It was a huge success, generating our biggest media story to date, attracting hundreds of submissions, and surely contributing at least a tiny bit to the highest ever turnout for a London Mayoral Election.

Now that the dust has settled, we decided to find out what #ventyourrent taught us.

There were a few problems that it's clear Londoners are no strangers to, including the most common complaint, damp and mould, with 24 posts (by our count):

Many of the cases demonstrate the need for reform of the rental market, but it's important that tenants understand what course of action they can take as things stand.

Whether it's reporting landlords to the relevant authorities or naming and shaming them, we thought it would be a good idea to create a new page with all of that on. We're calling it Help & Info. It's a work in progress, but we hope it's useful.

If you haven't vented you rent yet, the hashtag and Tumblr are still taking submissions.